時をかける少女: Week 5 Discussion (Chapters 6 and 7)

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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Chapters 6 and 7: くるった火曜日／今夜まで待て！

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Start Date: December 22nd
Previous Chapters: Chapters 4 and 5
Next Chapters: Chapters 8 and 9

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時をかける少女: Week 6 Discussion (Chapters 8 and 9)
時をかける少女: Week 4 Discussion (Chapters 4 and 5)
#2

Kadokawa Page 32
和子はひとり頭を痛めながら、考えつづけた。
Could someone please help me with ひとり頭. It’s not in a J-E dictionary, and I don’t understand the definition in the J-J. This is what I found: 費用を人数で割ったひとり分.

Something a little more random:
The next page brought masu-stem+かける to my attention. Am I right in thinking that this かける is used if you are in the middle of something…
やりかけた宿題を投げ出した。
but 途中 is only used for travel? ie. やっている途中の宿題を投げ出した would be incorrect. What about やっているところの宿題を投げ出した?

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#3

You shouldn’t break this sentence down like this. It’s ひとり + 頭を痛めながら、+ 考えつづけた.
ひとり here means “alone” or “by herself” (kanji could be either 一人 or 独り, I think), so She kept hurting her head while thinking about it by herself.

Yes, one of the meanings of masu stem + かける is that the action was started, or you’re in the middle of it. But 途中 can actually be used in that same sense, like 食事の途中で席を立つ, though I don’t know if it can be attached directly to verbs like you did, it would probably have to be 宿題の途中[…]. I’m not sure about ところ, though.

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#4

Oh, that makes a lot more sense :laughing: I was expected ひとりで is what confused me I think. It’s probably only used with verbs where the ひとり is doing the action

Interesting, thank you!

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#5

I have some trouble with the last sentence of chapter 6.
吾朗は目をまるくした。そして、背の低い、横にはみだしたからだをぶるっと大きくふるわした。
Goro rounded his eyes. Then he shivered. But what exactly does the second sentence mean? Especially the 横にはみだしたからだ part?

#6

A native English speaker may be able to help better but…

横にはみだしたからだ written in kanji is 横に食み出した体

食み出す「はみだす」to stick out; to protrude.

I can’t make graceful English sentences (sorry!).

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#7

So his body protruded horizontally? Still doesn’t make sense…

#8

He’s fat.

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#9

Nice, short answer, straight to the point. I like you.

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#10

It looks like 頭を痛める is an expression meaning “to be concerned about​”. Though like @xarde, I would have expected it to be ひとりで…

I’m a little confused by the opening two sentences of chapter 6.

その日、和子はちっとも授業に身が入らなかった。もっとも、どの授業も一度教わったことばかりだったのだが…。

First sentence: That day, Kazuko didn’t try very hard in class. Though, every lesson was only stuff she already learned once.

Is that pretty much right? I’m having so much trouble translating these sentences, particularly the second one. And I know that redundancy is much more acceptable in Japanese than in English, but having the sentence start with もっとも (尤も) and end with だが still feels so strange to me.

Finally, twice on the first page, it says 一日だけ. What meaning of だけ is this exactly? “Only one day” doesn’t fit well from the context because it implies she’s considering that time could have gone back more than one. Perhaps the word “merely” or “simply” is better for an English translation? Or is it something else entirely?

As far as story, just from the first page, Kazuko sure went quickly from “time reversed a day” to “time reversed for me a day”, and therefore from “I’m so confused, this makes no sense” to “ah, that’s the only logical explanation”. Just thought it was kind of funny.

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#11

“As much as”, as in できるだけ as much as possible.

She took most of the day to reach that conclusion, though :thinking: it sounds fast since it’s only a few sentences of narration, but she only focused on that for hours in practice.

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#12

Thanks!

I figured this might have been what @Darcinon and @sigolino were talking about last week, but I wasn’t really sure what they were getting at at the time.

That’s true. Just the distortion of narration I guess. :joy:

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#13

Well, yeah. But hurting your head (“racking your brains”) is an idiom for being concerned or stressed about some issue or problem in English, too. Think it implies 悩む

Yeah but, I’d say “although, every lesson was stuff she’d already learned once anyway… (so it’s not like it mattered)”
もっとも has a “of course” or “obviously” feel to it’s “though,” and does often complete with a “but” word.

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#14

On the last line of p35:
そこまで考えて、和子はな、つ、とした
I’m having trouble with the tsu in between the commas…and really not sure what this last clause means. Thinking to there, kazuko…what?

#15

かりだったのだが on p35 also has me muddled

#16

はっと means to do or think/realize something suddenly.

In the book, once she thinks that far, she comes to a surprising conclusion (on the next page).

Also they’re not commas. Not sure how you’re reading the book, but in the physical book they are emphatic marks where furigana might otherwise be.

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#17

Aha! The commas threw me

#18

The NOT commas threw me, rather :slight_smile:

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#19

こと ばかり だった の だ が

ばかり means “only,” or like, “full of just that.”

We talked a little bit about this sentence further up the thread. 時をかける少女: Week 5 Discussion

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#20

Yes! Was interpretatively helpful for the sentence as a whole, but I still couldn’t break down that last bit into concrete words—so, thank you!